Deliver Us

¹“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” (Matthew 6:13). To enter the kingdom of God, we must be born again. Like the first time we were born, when we are born again we must be delivered. When it comes to deliveries, no one expects the child to do much of the work themselves. Even the mothers are rarely expected to deliver their babies all by themselves. There are usually doctors and nurses or midwives or at the very least a panicky yet compassionate bystander. When we ask God to deliver us, we are acknowledging that we can’t be born again all on our own. We need His help, just like we and our mothers needed the help of qualified medical professionals when we were born the first time. A delivery can be a painful experience but God is with us to make sure that we emerge from our spiritual rebirth whole and healthy. Even better, God is not simply going to deliver us and then tell us good luck. A newborn baby is basically helpless for quite some time. When we are born again, we should not expect to be able to run or walk or even crawl down the gospel path. Indeed, it may be sometime before we figure out even how to sit up properly. But God will be with us through this learning and growing process. I’m sure if we newborn babies could communicate with us, many of them would express serious doubts or complaints about leaving behind the safe and dark womb for a chaotic world that they are ill equipped to handle and utterly dependent on others for literally everything. But eventually we start to discover all of the wonderful things that life has to offer. It is the same when we are born again. At first, leaving behind the safety of the material world can be scary and disorientating, but as we continue to rely on the Lord as He helps us learn to navigate a more spiritual and joyful way of living, we will soon be grateful of the increased freedom and joy that are available to us. I hope that when we choose to be born again and ask the Lord to deliver us, we appreciate both the challenges and the wonderful opportunities that this process brings with it. God will be with us through it all and we will be so grateful in the end that He delivered us.